Coming
from his short stint abroad as a seafarer, his first ever gift to me was a plastic
sword, its handle laced with “gems” and “stones” of different colors complete
with scabbard. While my playmates are satisfied
with their improvised wooden swords, I scuttle and scamper with my toy sword given
to me by my Tito Baby fixed in my hand.
Neighborhood
kids especially those fond of reading a certain komiks novel in Liwayway
Magazine are jealous of my latest apparel. The year was 1968 and a serialized
novel written by Nemesio E. Caravana and illustrated by Nes C. Ureta titled,
you’ve guessed it right, “Excalibur” was one of our favorites. My playmates and
I do our sword fights from late afternoon till sundown.
His
closest relatives call him “Baby” being the youngest in a brood of seven boys.
But as years passed by it gradually changed into other nicknames: “Bebeng” to
his classmates in elementary and high school “Joe” “Jay” or “Joey” to his
friends and later “Ute” (but he spelled it as “Ottie”) as a grown-up man. Before
he went to college in Manila, I was told by my Mamang that Tito baby was once a
junior seminarian but bolted out of the school for reasons I didn’t dare to ask.
As I have told you, he have been in many countries like Brazil, Kuwait, Italy
and other places in the world that I can recall from his travel photo album way
back in the 70s. He was a seaman for some time and turned into businessman and eventually
became a farmer when he settled down as his family grows.
My
late father and Tito Baby have many things in common especially when it comes
to firmness in their decisions, hard work and compassion for the needy, a sort of trademark of the Novio’s of San Jose as one of its pioneering residents. Papa
and Tito used to read pocket books particularly war and espionage novels.
During their younger years, separately in their lives, they have been caught up
in melees and minor offenses against the law and persons of authority. Their hand writings are the most beautiful compared
to the rest of their brothers.
When
he’s in his late 30's, Tito Baby encouraged me, his Kuya Manuel’s eldest, to
pursue my long deferred college education. I stayed with them all through out
until I finished my Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education. He stood as my
second father at that time. He and Tita Nida bankrolled my studies, from school
fees and allowances, all the way. I was their general factotum, like what Tita
Nida jokingly used to describe what I am to them. And I became witness (and sometimes
accomplice) to some of Ute’s little misdemeanors. Without the couple’s help,
with all honesty I have to admit, because of my immediate family’s financial
hardship, there’s no way I could earn a degree in college. I could have ended then
as a career-less and jobless bum without their aid. Nobody asked me but my early
poems and essays were published through Tita Nida’s portable typewriter
trademarked Brother. I have learned many things about literature and writing
from their bookshelf. Including baby-sitting, cooking, driving, hollow-blocks-
making, palay-drying and acting as an apprentice to a canteen, to name a few.
But
as a family man and as he grows old, Ute became a transformed individual. He
paid a visit to my mother late last year in Bubog and that’s the last time I
saw him. I only see him on special occasions because I, too, have my own family to mind and to attend to, until the news
broke out the other day that Tito Baby succumbed to heart attack in Manila
after few days in the ICU. The well-dressed and be-mustached man who gave me a
toy plastic sword when I was 6 was gone but cannot be forgotten.
Thank
you Tito Baby, for that magical “Excalibur” of “Education” that you gave me. This
is a very potent weapon from pommel to point until now that I have drawn from the
stone spelled L-I-F-E. Like the King Arthur legend, this “Excalibur” served me well
and later I became a gallant king in my own right!
Just
like how the legendary Excalibur taken back to the care of the Lady of the
Lake, he, now in the hands of His Divine Creator, will remain in my memory
forever…
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(Photo; Flicker)